By Harizah Hanim Mohamed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 21\u00a0(NNN-Bernama) — China\u2019s\u00a0continuing reopening narrative and\u00a0the improved domestic economic sentiment, due to the decision to maintain the overnight policy rate (OPR) at 2.75 per cent, will keep the Malaysian\u00a0ringgit supported next week,\u00a0a dealer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SPI Asset Management managing director Stephen Innes said China is the largest export market for most regional economies and positive news from the mainland should significantly improve the trade outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI expect the US dollar-ringgit exchange rate to be between 4.2650 and 4.2950 next week and I upgrade my year-end call for the currency\u2019s rate to the 4.10-level from the current expectation of 4.20. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI might revise it higher to the 4.00-level depending on China\u2019s consumption post-pandemic and the property market progress after the Chinese New Year,\u201d he told Bernama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He emphasised that Malaysia would be a big beneficiary since a big percentage of Malaysia\u2019s exports end up in China, and this would definitely support the local currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the domestic front, Innes reckons that the political risk premium built into the currency since 2018 is now evaporating, and with Malaysian exporters reducing greenback holdings, the ringgit is set to go higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo for next week, exporters may cut down on the US dollar following Philadelphia Federal Reserve president Patrick Harker’s statement for the US central bank to move to a slower pace of interest rate rise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ringgit ended the week mostly higher as market sentiment improved due to domestic and global factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a week-on-week basis, the ringgit was stronger against the US dollar at 4.2830\/2875 on Friday from 4.3325\/3375 a week earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The local note also strengthened against a basket of major currencies versus a week earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was higher against the British pound at 5.2861\/2916 from 5.2973\/3035, the euro at 4.6393\/6442 from 4.6986\/7040, the Japanese yen at 3.3073\/3111 from 3.3703\/3744 and the Singapore dollar at 3.2386\/2425 from 3.2782\/2825.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
— NNN-BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Harizah Hanim Mohamed KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 21\u00a0(NNN-Bernama) — China\u2019s\u00a0continuing reopening narrative and\u00a0the improved domestic economic sentiment, due to the decision to maintain the overnight policy rate (OPR) at 2.75 per cent, will keep the Malaysian\u00a0ringgit supported next week,\u00a0a dealer said. SPI Asset Management managing director Stephen Innes said China is the largest export market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":147241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215,288,300,318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207636"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207637,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207636\/revisions\/207637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/147241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}